IMG wraps up our Macworld Expo San Francisco coverage with some detailed notes from our talk with longtime Mac favorite Blizzard Entertainment. The next release from Blizzard Entertainment is the upcoming Diablo IIExpansion Pack. This add-on for the hugely successful Diablo II adds two newcharacter classes, new items and spells as well as an entire fifth act to the game.Inside Mac Games had a chance to sit down with Brian Love from Blizzard tosee an early build of the Expansion Pack running on a PowerBook G3.

The two new character classes are the Assassin and the Druid, of course. The Assassin has avariety of new martial arts-inspired combat moves which results in theAssassin being a very formidable close-range fighter. The Druid, on the other hand, hasthe ability to morph into other creatures such as a wolf or a bear. Theeffect is quite impressive and adds a new dimension of play to Diablo II. TheDruid also has some impressive magical abilities, including the power tosummon a volcano to drown his enemies in floods of lava. So much for Druids being peaceful tree-worshippers.

The Diablo II: Expansion Pack also adds a significant number of new items,magical abilities, and skills. In addition to new, class-specific items,Brian Love explains that there will be "a galaxy of new items available" toall character classes. There will be an entirely new set of Exceptional andSet Items.

Exceptional Items will also be introduced that are exclusive to the Helllevel of the game. There will be anywhere from 50 to 100 new magicalprefixes and suffixes added to the game in order to further enhance therewards system.

In addition to these new features, an entirely new Act V will continue thestory started in Diablo II. Act V will take place immediately following theend of Diablo II, with the title "The Story of Baal." Players will have theoption of starting a new character and playing the game from the beginningor taking the character they used to complete the original Diablo IIdirectly into Act V. Players will not, however, be able to jump into theNightmare difficulty level in Act V unless they have completed the previousfour acts at this difficulty level.

Love says that Blizzard has been "happy with the sales" of Diablo II andthat they expect the Mac version of the Diablo II: Expansion Pack to bereleased within 30 days of the release of the PC version, baring anyunforeseen problems. While there is no official release date for theexpansion pack, Blizzard is targeting sometime in the second quarter of thisyear. This new information about the Diablo II: Expansion Pack is just asampling of what this title will offer to fans of the original. You canexpect more details about this exciting release in the coming weeks.